Gear Scout: Triple Aught Design Foundry

We live in a throwaway society. Most products are designed with a limited lifespan, or even for one-time use. Stores have found themselves in a race to the bottom, with products that keep getting cheaper, and customers who continue to demand lower prices. The solution, sadly, has been to throw quality out of the window and outsource as much as possible to large factories in underdeveloped countries. Like most people starting out, I purchased plenty of this cheap crap, and through many hard lessons and frustrating experiences, learned to appreciate the saying, “Buy once, cry once.” It’s a concept my grandfather loved—if you buy the high-quality product the first time, you’ll rarely be disappointed. Given that I’m still using his pocket knife from the 1940s, I’d say he was right.

Unfortunately, finding these quality goods is becoming harder and harder these days, which is why we get excited when we see a manufacturer like Triple Aught Design announce a new product. Their latest release is part of a larger project known as the Foundry, their “forge for special fabrications, unique colorways, and product experiments.” It’s called the White’s MP service boot and is inspired by the US Army and Airforce boots used at the start of WWII. Each is hand sewn with real leather, and custom ordered to each buyer’s demands. The TAD edition features gunmetal eyelets, gunmetal topstitching throughout, triple-needle toe cap stitching, and the TAD logo on the outside quarter of both boots.

Like all of Triple Aught’s products, this boot will not come cheap, but it is also extremely stylish, useful, and built to last a lifetime. To learn more, check out the video below, and then order your pair on their website here.

Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Chris didn’t receive a real taste of the outdoors until moving to Prescott, Arizona, in 2009. While working on his business degree, he learned to fly and spent his weekends exploring the Arizona desert and high country. It was there that he fell in love with backcountry travel and four-wheel drive vehicles, eventually leading him to Overland Journal and Expedition Portal. After several years of honing his skills in writing, photography, and off-road driving, Chris now works for the company full time as Expedition Portal's Managing Editor.